Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Abstract-Mechanically robust waveguide-integration and beam shaping of terahertz quantum cascade lasers


Valavanis, A. Han, Y. ; Brewster, N. ; Dean, P. ; Dong, R. ; Bushnell, L. ; Oldfield, M. ; Zhu, J. ; Li, L. ; Davies, A. ;Ellison, B. ; Linfield, E.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abstractAuthors.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=7122466&filter%3DAND%28p_IS_Number%3A7122393%29

Terahertz-frequency quantum cascade lasers (THz QCLs) have numerous potential applications as 1–5 THz radiation sources in space science, biomedical and industrial sensing scenarios. However, the key obstacles to their wide-scale adoption outside laboratory environments have included their poor far-field beam quality and the lack of mechanically robust schemes that allow integration of QCLs with THz waveguides, mixers and other system components. A block integration scheme is presented, in which a continuous-wave ∼3.4 THz double-metal QCL is bonded into a precision-machined rectangular waveguide within a copper heat-sink block. This highly reproducible approach provides a single-lobed far-field beam profile with a divergence of ≲20°, and with no significant degradation in threshold current or in the range of operating temperatures.

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